


Love's Strange

by ceealaina



Series: Tony Stark Bingo 2019 [7]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, M/M, Minor Carol Danvers/James "Rhodey" Rhodes, Tony Stark makes bad life choices
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-17
Updated: 2019-06-17
Packaged: 2020-05-13 07:33:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19246675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ceealaina/pseuds/ceealaina
Summary: Bucky couldn’t resist giving him a quick kiss before Tony’s words caught up to him. “A... plant?” he repeated, because last he checked, Tony wasn’t the horticultural type. But sure enough, there was a funny little lime green thing sitting in a bright pink pot on the tabletop, about six inches high and covered in little spikey bell-shaped leaves, run through with electric blue veins. “Where did that come from?”“No idea,” Tony answered. “It was here when I came down. I thought maybe Steve brought it for me? Steve seems like the type to give people plants, right?” He reached out, running his index finger delicately over one of the leaves. “Ooh, it’s soft.” He gave Bucky another smile. “It’s kinda cute, right?”“Uh... cute,” Bucky repeated. “Right."**Tony makes a new friend in the lab, and for some reason Bucky is the only one with enough sense to be concerned about it. (This fulfills square K3 (Carniverous Plant) of my Tony Stark Bingo and my Free square for the Winteriron Bingo)





	Love's Strange

Bucky walked into the lab and couldn’t help grinning broadly. Tony was draped over a work desk, poking at something, hip canted out and grey pants molding perfectly to his ass. 

“Well hell,” Bucky drawled, leaning against the doorframe and folding his arms over his chest as he let himself just linger and stare. “Ain’t that a sight for sore eyes.” 

“Hey honey.” Tony looked over his shoulder, shooting Bucky a genuine grin, but a second later his attention was pulled back to whatever he’d been looking at. “What’re you doing down here?” he added after a minute, tone distracted. 

Bucky shrugged even though Tony couldn’t see him. “Got bored. Sam and Clint were talking about whether a radish is also a rutabaga. Too much stupid for me to handle, so I thought I’d come down here... Pester my favourite engineer... Maybe see if he wanted to fool around a little...?”

That got him a soft huff of pleased laughter, but Tony didn’t look up again and, curiosity winning out, Bucky gave up his A+ view to move over to him. 

“What’ve you got, doll?” 

Tony glanced over when Bucky leaned into his space, face pulled into an adorably puzzled frown. “A plant.” 

Bucky couldn’t resist giving him a quick kiss before Tony’s words caught up to him. “A... plant?” he repeated, because last he checked, Tony wasn’t the horticultural type. But sure enough, there was a funny little lime green thing sitting in a bright pink pot on the tabletop, about six inches high and covered in little spikey bell-shaped leaves, run through with electric blue veins. “Where did that come from?” 

“No idea,” Tony answered. “It was here when I came down. I thought maybe Steve brought it for me? Steve seems like the type to give people plants, right?” He reached out, running his index finger delicately over one of the leaves. “Ooh, it’s soft.” He gave Bucky another smile. “It’s kinda cute, right?” 

“Uh... cute,” Bucky repeated. “Right. Tony, what the hell is this? I’ve never seen a plant looking anything like that before.” 

“Oh, really? I mean, it didn’t look familiar to me, but then, it’s not like I’m a  _ botanist _ .” He managed to say the word with so much disdain that Bucky couldn’t help snorting a little. “I just assumed it was some specialty fancy plant. You know, like orchids.” 

Bucky blinked, watching as Tony continued stroking the leaves carefully, and what the hell, he could have sworn the plant shivered. “That definitely ain’t an orchid.”

“Well, I know  _ that _ ,” Tony replied, before staring off into the middle distance for a minute. “Wait, what do orchids look like?” he asked, before shaking his head. “Doesn’t matter. I like it.”

Bucky was still watching the plant suspiciously. He was almost positive that he could see it actually leaning into Tony’s touch against its leaves, and he was definitely positive that plants weren’t supposed to do that. “Tony, baby... Don’t you think that we should maybe... Find out where it came from?” 

Tony lifted his head, giving Bucky a dry look. “What? You think it’s secretly a trap sent here to- ow!” Tony’s eyes went wide and slowly turned his head to look back down at the plant. “It bit me!” He lifted his hand up, the entire plant coming with him, one of the bell leaves now closed around the tip of his index finger. He gave his hand a little shake, wincing when the grip tightened. “Oww!”

“Shit!” Bucky moved to grab the thing, ready to rip the leaf off and smash the plant against the wall, but Tony smacked him away with his other hand. 

“Careful! You’re gonna hurt him!” Tony turned back to the plant. “Hey, Einstein, I’m not your food. Let go of me.” He was practically cooing at it, using his free hand to tug carefully until the plant let him go and he could set it back on the table. “See?” He turned to Bucky, all smug. “He was just hungry, weren’t you pretty thing?” He gave the plant another little pat, and this time Bucky definitely saw it flutter at the attention. “Do you think he eats blueberries?” 

“Tony!” Bucky stared at him incredulously. “It just tried to eat  _ you _ !” 

“Because he was hungry,” Tony insisted. “Must be a Venus Fly Trap.”

Bucky groaned. “That is not a Venus Fly Trap. Tony, honey, we gotta find out what this is before it goes all Little Shop of Horrors, and  _ does _ eat you.” 

***

“Alien,” Bruce confirmed twenty minutes later. Bucky had gone to get him when Tony refused to do any testing in case he hurt his precious new friend. They’d come back to find him feeding it peanuts. “The chemical composition in the soil isn’t even something that exists on this planet.” 

Bucky groaned, rubbing at his temples as he felt a headache coming on. “Outstanding,” he muttered dryly. 

“I know, right?” Tony asked, bending over the table to get his face up close to the plant with his usual complete lack of regard for personal safety. “Hey, you funky little alien. Did you come all this way to hang out with me?” 

“ _ Tony _ .” Bucky gave his boyfriend a look. “You cannot keep the carnivorous space plant.” 

“Carnivorous?” Bruce looked up from the readouts he had been peering at, eyebrows raising. 

“It tried to eat Tony earlier.” 

“He was  _ hungry _ ,” Tony insisted again. “We just have to figure out what he eats and it’ll be fine.” 

“He eats people, Tony.” 

Tony just shrugged. “He liked the peanuts I gave him.” 

Tony refused to hear a word against his plant, or to stop feeding it peanuts, so Bucky did what any sane person would do in this situation. 

He went to get Steve. 

"Stevie," he complained, walking into the living room and finding Steve parked in front of a window, sketching the skyline. "Please come and collect your ridiculous boyfriend."

" _ My _ boyfriend?" Steve repeated without looking up from his drawing. "Uh-uh, it's Tuesday. Pretty sure he's  _ your _ boyfriend on Tuesdays," he told him, snickering when Bucky tossed a throw pillow at him. 

"Fine. Come and collect  _ our _ boyfriend. He's not listening to me." 

"What's he doing now?" 

“Hanging out with aliens.”

Steve did look up then, a slightly startled look crossing his features. “I’m sorry, he’s what now?” 

“Just come on.” 

Bucky explained the situation on the way down to the lab, where they found that Bruce and Tony had progressed from peanuts to feeding the plant raw ground beef. Clint was standing in the corner, a bandaid wrapped around his finger. 

“Uhh,” Steve said eloquently. 

Tony looked up at the sound of his voice. “Steve!” he cried happily. “Come and meet our new child!” 

Bucky choked at that but Tony ignored him, grabbing Steve by the arm and hauling him over to the table. “Steve, this is Einstein. Einstein, this is your other other dad, Steve.” 

“Um, hi Einstein,” Steve said, sounding a little perplexed. “Where did he come from?” 

“No idea,” Tony admitted. “But he was hungry,” he added, getting a grumble from Clint. “Look!” He grabbed another spoonful of the ground beef, and Bucky waited expectantly for Steve to tell him that they needed to kill it with fire immediately. But instead, to his horror, he watched Steve move closer, bending over the table to peer at  Einstein the plant speculatively. 

“Aww,” he cooed, watching him -  _ it _ \- gobble down a mouthful. “He’s kinda cute.” 

“Right?” Tony looked at him, pleased. “Here, look.” He grabbed Steve’s hand, touching his fingers gently against the plant’s leaves. The plant shivered again, leaning into the touch. “See? He likes it!” 

“Oh, sure,” Clint grumbled from the corner pouting at the plant. “ _ Captain America  _ touches him and he’s everyone’s best friend. But  _ I  _ get near him, and the thing tries to attack me. That thing’s dangerous, Tony!” 

“Thank you!” Bucky agreed, pointing at Clint. The two of them shared a look and Tony just glared at them both. 

“You scared him, Barton. What were you expecting?” He stroked the leaves again, beaming down at the plant like some kind of proud parent. “See? He’s harmless.” 

Steve had taken over feeding it, grinning as the plant gulped down mouthfuls of ground beef, like that wasn’t the most terrifying thing in existence. Bruce was scribbling observations on a tablet, grinning at them over top of his glasses from time to time. Bucky just threw up his arms, sensing that this was an argument he wasn’t going to win. 

“What is  _ wrong _ with you people?” he demanded, because he may have loved these idiots but it didn’t mean they weren’t still idiots. 

Unfortunately, it didn’t seem like Einstein was going anywhere. Tony and Steve were doting on their “funky little alien son.” Tony and Bruce were performing daily (non harmful) experiments, figuring out what he ate and what he didn’t eat, soil composition, trying to determine where he came from. Tony had introduced him to Dum E, U, and Friday, who all apparently adored their new baby brother. Steve would sit for hours, sketching them working, and close ups of the plant itself. There was even one that Tony had had framed and put up in their living room, to a lot of eye rolling from Bucky. Nat had rolled her eyes at Bucky’s protests, Thor had told him not to worry about it, Sam had laughed himself sick over Bucky being scared of a tiny little plant (although Bucky noticed he didn’t get within five feet of it himself) and after the fifth time Einstein had bitten him, Clint refused to go anywhere near the lab. So Bucky was left as the only voice of reason, glowering at everybody from the corner for getting too close to the thing. 

Until the day that he and Steve went out on a run only to get an Avengers alert for an intruder in Tony’s lab. They’d torn back to the tower at super soldier speed, but it had still taken them a full ten minutes to get there and by that time, apparently, they needn’t have worried. 

The lab was in complete disarray by then, machinery overturned and tossed around the room, all the tech blinking and on the fritz. Tony was leaning against the far wall, halfway between sitting and standing. He was cradling his arm and looking shell shocked and bruised and bleeding, but nothing seemed too serious. There was no sign of any bad guys. 

“Tony?!” Steve rushed over to his side as Bucky did a more thorough sweep of the space. “Jesus, Tony, what happened?” 

Tony waved him off as Steve helped him upright, wincing at the shift of his arm; it looked like his shoulder was dislocated. “Uh… Portal. Weird space bird things.” He was blinking a lot, still looking dazed. Worried he was concussed, Steve cupped his face in his hands, trying to get a look at his pupils, but Tony scrunched up his face and pulled away. “Stop,” he protested. 

“Tony, baby…” Bucky moved to join them, gun in hand and a perplexed look on his face. “Where did they go?” 

“Umm.” Tony was frowning again, that confused look back. “Einstein took care of it.” 

“ _ Einstein _ ?” Steve and Bucky both spoke in unison, turning to face the plant. He was in the same place on the table, looking as if nothing had even happened. 

“Yeah,” Tony said. “He just, uh…” He made an explosion motion with his hands. “He just… Ate them.” 

“He ate them.” Steve repeated, staring at where Einstein sat a full seven inches tall. 

Bucky blinked and threw his arms up in a shrug. “Alright, sure,” he said. “Weird space plant ate the bad guys? Sure. I guess he can stay.” 

And if in the middle of the night Steve and Tony woke to find Bucky missing from bed, only to discover him in the lab, cooing over Einstein and telling him how smart and perfect and pretty he was? They kept that to themselves. 

***

It was nearly three months later that Carol and Rhodey showed up, with a sonic boom and no warning as they usually did. Tony had been sprawled across the couch, tangled with Steve and Bucky and sleeping off a work binge, and he’d practically shoved them both to the ground in his haste to go greet them. 

Rhodes was waiting, armour gone and arms held out expectantly, the two men hugging tightly as they reunited. 

“So…?” Rhodey asked when they pulled apart, staring at Tony expectantly. Tony frowned at him. 

“So what?” 

Rhodey frowned, looking a little put out. “You didn’t get my present?” 

“Present?” Tony lit up, waggling his eyebrows ridiculously. “I love presents. Gimme.” 

“I already gave it to you. Well,  _ we _ did,” he added, grinning at Carol. “We couldn’t stay, but we dropped it off. Little thing about yay high.” He held up his hands. “Bright green? Likes leaf scratches, jazz music, and raw meat? Protective streak a mile wide?” 

Tony blinked at him. “Einstein was from you?!”

Rhodey just rolled his eyes. “How many other Rhodey’s do you know?” he asked before catching Tony’s blank expression. “Did… Did you not get the note?” 

(In retrospect, leaving the explanatory note beside the plant that ate literally anything probably hadn’t been Rhodey’s best move.)


End file.
